


Hike-Mas

by aloneintherain



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of child neglect, Protective Max, Sickfic, parental david, sick david
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 02:23:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aloneintherain/pseuds/aloneintherain
Summary: Based off anon prompt: David gets a high fever and basically tries to go on as normal. It takes the whole camp (and Max) to keep him in bed.





	Hike-Mas

**Author's Note:**

> This has been on my computer for literally months. Sorry for the late upload, prompter!

David doesn’t need the red sharpie on his calendar to tell him the annual Camp Campbell hike—Hike-Mas, as David calls it—is rapidly approaching; he has Max. A week out from Hike-Mas, Max starts testing excuses on him. David knows they’re only excuses, because Max never actually puts any effort into making them believable.

During lunch, when David is chewing slowly on a sandwich, trying to get it down even though it feels like chalk, Max comes over to him. He punches David’s arm to get his attention, and says, “Both my legs are broken.”

“No, they’re not, Max,” David says. “I can see them, and they’re fine.”

“But theoretically, if they were broken … ”

David doesn’t need to ask what this is about. He lays down his sandwich. “Well, you can’t walk with broken legs.” A sly smile creeps up Max’s face. David points at him. “But don’t you even think about hurting yourself just to get out of this hike.”

“I’m not stupid.”

Max walks back to his lunch table. As David is picking his unappealing sandwich back up, he hears Max call across the Mess Hall: “Hey, Nurf, how much would both legs cost?”

Nurf scoffs. “You don’t have that kind of money.”

“You’d be surprised by how much birthday cash I get it. My parents think money is a good substitute for their actual presence in my life, so, like, I’m fucking rolling in dough.”

David pushes his tray away, giving up on lunch, and strides towards his campers with his hands on his hips. Across from Max, Neil holds his hand up for a high-five, and says, “Guilt money, what’s up!”

Max stares at Neil blankly. Nikki leans over the table, and high-fives Neil with enough force to leave his palm bright red. Neil whimpers and cradles his hand to his chest.

David sits on the bench beside Max. “Now, kids,” he begins, “I’m sure your parents love you all very much, and are as involved in your lives as much as they can be.”

“Nah,” Max says.

Neil picks up his coffee with his good hand, and scowls at David over the lip of the mug. “I’m a child of divorce, David. I know what guilt money looks like. You don’t need to shelter us.”

David splutters. They must be joking. He can’t fathom it. Who wouldn’t completely rearrange their lives and devote themselves entirely to these wonderful, amazing kids? It’s impossible not to love them.

David clears his throat, and turns to Max. “You’re not to pay someone to hurt you either, Max. You are going on this hike if I have to carry you the whole way.”

“Nice subject change,” Max says. “Very subtle.”

 

* * *

 

 

Max doesn’t stop testing out excuses, even if David shoots down each one. He’s looking forward to Hike-Mas so much he can hardly sleep at night. Actually, he can hardly eat, or keep food down, or see straight—that’s how excited he is.

The day before the hike—Hike-Mas Eve—David packs spare sunscreen and a first aid kit in his bag, and lays out tomorrow’s outfit. He dons a pair of plastic gloves and a surgical mask, and helps the Quartermaster chop orange slices. The Quartermaster sets about making some kind of gummy, odd smelling soup on the stove, and David starts making sandwiches. Gwen pokes her head in the kitchen sometime after sunset. David must have skipped dinner. He hadn’t noticed; he hasn’t been hungry all day.

“Gwen!” David’s voice is muffled by the mask. “Come in, join us. How are the campers?”

“I threw a monopoly set at them, so they should be at each other’s throats in another, say, fifteen minutes.”

“That sounds like a real team building exercise,” David says as he’s laying tomato slices over beef and pickles. This one is Nurf’s. Most of the kids don’t like pickles or tomatoes, but Nurf does.

“I’m going to remind you that you said that when we’re mopping up the blood.”

“There won’t be any blood.”

“When I left, Max was in the process of putting hotels on the blue properties, so I wouldn’t be too sure.”

David lays out kraft singles on one slice of bread. He splatters mini M&Ms over the cheese, presses the bread slices together, and then cuts off the crusts. Nikki’s favourite.

David loses himself in the methodical process. He doesn’t need to consult his notes; he knows everyone’s preferences and allergies by now. Even though the room is stuffy and this side of too warm, and the thought of eating any of the food laid out in front of him makes his stomach churn, he enjoys this.

Gwen smacks him in the head with a roll of cling-wrap.

“Ow! Gwen!”

“I’ve called your name a dozen times now, David, and you didn’t hear me.”

David goes to rub the back of his head, remembers he’s wearing gloves, and lowers them again. “I guess I just got caught up in the, uh, riveting sandwich making process. You have to be very careful to make sure you don’t accidentally cut yourself—”

Gwen glances down at the dull butter knife shaking between David’s fingers. The knife makes a soft ting, ting, ting noise against the metal countertop. Gwen takes it from him. “Have you been getting bad again?”

“What?” David says. “Of course not. I promised to tell both you and Max if that happened.”

The Quartermaster grunts beside the stove, where his soup has started to froth up and turn purple . David won’t let the children anywhere near that soup, let alone drink it. “Suspicious,” Quartermaster grunts.

“Oh,” David says, “even you’re ganging up on me, now?”  
“David,” Gwen says.

David does his best to glower at her, but he’s never been very good at making his body look mean. Gwen must see something in the glassy sheen of his eyes, the flush of his cheeks above his mask, because she sighs and hands the butter knife back over.

“You’re going to make the kids sick, too,” she tells him.

“I’m wearing gloves, and a mask, and I’ve been carrying around hand sanitiser.”

“They hang off you like limpets. Hand sanitiser isn’t going to do anything.”

David sticks his nose in the air. “Then I guess I just won’t pick them up.”

“That’ll last all of 5 minutes. You’re weak for those kids, David. Weak.”

David clasps his hands over his heart, careful not to touch his t-shirt with the gloves. “They’re so small and trusting, Gwen. They’re in our care, how can we deny them hugs?”

The Quartermaster sticks his head out the kitchen, clucks his tongue, and says, “Bloodshed.”

In the silence that follows, they can clearly make out distant, maniacal laughter and what sounds like Neil shouting, “That’s not how taxes WORK, you WHORE.”

“… Monopoly was a bad idea,” Gwen says. As she heads for the door, she points at David. “Get some sleep tonight and be better by tomorrow, or I will be forced to call you on your bullshit, and I will get the tiny terrors to help me.”

“They’re not tiny terrors, Gwen. They’re children.”

“Fuck municipal government, Nerris,” Neil shouts. “Municipal government can’t stop me from torching your minivan, BITCH.”

“Sleep,” Gwen tells David, and then ducks out the door to stop the Capitalism-induced brawl breaking out near the tents.

 

* * *

 

 

David tries to sleep. He does. But by the time he’s finishing up the last sandwich, it’s late. He goes back to his cabin, lays in bed, and the usual pre-Hike-Max jitters are accompanied by a dry itch in his throat, and a heat unspooling behind his eyes. He manages a few hours, but has nonsensical dreams that leave him unbalanced when he wakes.

David gives up and crosses to the Mess Hall in the dim pre-dawn. When Gwen joins soon after, hair unbrushed, she takes one look at him, and says, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, David.”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry so much, Gwen.”

David pops several Advill and washes it down with a pot of coffee. He pulls a face with every mouthful. Gwen watches on with a knowing frown.

He leaves Gwen to put together the bags, and goes to rouse the campers. He circles the campsite, banging two pots together. Swearing erupts from each tent he passes. He clears his throat, and does his best with his scratchy throat: “Rise and shine! Today’s the big day.”

Max emerges from his tent. His hoodie is on backwards, and his curls are twice their usual height. He holds onto David’s calf, and sways on his feet. “I crave death.”

“Max, that’s not something to joke about.”

Ered hobbles out of her tent. Her hair is in a sloppy bun. “Who’s joking?”

David clangs the pots together again. The kids wince and cover their ears, as David shouts, “C’mon, slow pokes. We’re wasting daylight.”

“What daylight?” Max says. “It’s still fucking dark out.”

“As soon as the sun is up, we need to get going.”

David shifts his weight from foot to foot. The caffeine was a bad idea. Instead of rejuvenating him, it worsens the fine tremors in his hands. Max squints at David’s smile, held together with optimism and sheer determination. “David, did you fucking push yourself again—”

David bangs the pots. “Moving bodies make for healthy minds! Up and atem, everyone!”

Neil pushes his tent flap back. His hair is flat on one side, puffed up on the other. He locks eyes with David, and says, “You motherfucker.”

“Good morning, Neil. You should really watch your language. You’re beginning to sound like Max.”

Max, in the middle of tugging his hoodie back round the right way, scowls at him through the folds of fabric. “Fine, I was gonna be halfway nice about it, but fuck that.” With that, Max shoves his arms through his hoodie sleeves, flips David off, and stomps off towards the councillor’s cabins.

David rubs grit out of his eyes, plasters his grin back on, and brings the pots together again. Neil makes a noise like an injured dog.

“I’m still missing campers. Come on, everyone, we’ve got a fun day ahead of us!”

David puts all his energy into drawing the campers out of their tents and into the cafeteria to wolf down a quick breakfast. He doesn’t eat anything himself. He gathers bags, hands out sunscreen—physically wrestling Nikki so she put hers on, and then brushing out the globs that get into her curls—and water bottles. He double-checks the first aid kit. Every time his knees buckle, and he gets light-headed, dots popping in his eyes, he grits his teeth and throws himself into the next task.

Keep moving. Keep distracted.

Does he have Nerris’ epipen? Did Neil remember to put on his special brand of sunscreen, rather than the generic stuff that gives him hives? Does he need to separate any of his exhausted, testy campers?

David is holding Nerris and Space Kid up, while Nurf prowls around his feet, and shouts about “needing all 12 hours of mandated sleep to be at his most productive”, when Gwen and Max come marching down from the cabins.

“Gwen,” David says, trying for chipper, but coming out scratchy and defeated.

Nurf, as though sensing weakness, hooks an arm around David’s knees and pulls his legs out from under him. He crashes into the ground, Nerris landing on his chest. Her weight crushes his lungs. Through he pulse in his ears, he hears Max cursing out Nurf; hears Nerris attempt to pour a healing potion on David; hears Space Kid jump up from where he bounced safely on the grass, and shout, “I’m okay!”

“Nerris, cut that shit out,” Max snipes.

“I’m healing him.”

“It’s fucking blue kool-aid, and you know it.”

“Nerris,” David says, or tries to—his breathing has been reduced to rattling wheezes. “Can you … ?”

Gwen plucks Nerris off his chest. Gwen looks down at him, eyebrows pinched, and says, “For Christ’s sake, David.”

“Today’s the day,” David says. “Hike-Mas.”

David props himself up on his elbows. The ground tilts. There’s too much blood in his head, slushing around between his ears.

Max pokes him with the toe of his sneaker. “Hey, David. I can’t go on the hike today. I’m horribly sick. I might pass out in the middle of the woods.”

David levels Max with his best stern look. “Oh, no, Max. I know you don’t have any broken bones or sudden sicknesses. You’re coming on this trip.”

“But if I was sick—really sick, not pretend-sick—would you still make me go?”

Max asks him questions like this sometimes. Things like: would you leave me if I was hurt? Would you send me to summer camp so you wouldn’t have to look at me?

He had only realised that the questions were tests halfway through the summer. This question doesn’t ache like all the others had. The other questions had been quieter, almost strained, and this one has a bite to it. Like Max is angry.

David rubs at his eye. “Max…”

“No. Shut the fuck up. Answer the question.”

Gwen crosses her arms over her chest, backing up Max. The other campers stand in a loose semicircle beyond her. They aren’t as enthusiastic about Camp-Max as he is, but David wants to share this experience with them. He wants introduce them to another amazing facet of camping. He’s a camp counsellor. This is his purpose.

David swallows. His throat burns like he’s been eating pine needles.

“No,” David finally says. “If you were sick, I wouldn’t let you go on this hike.”

In this position, Max and David are eye-level. Max leans in close, and David knows he’s done for.

“What would you make me do?” Max says.

“Take some medicine and go to bed.”

Max nods, just the once, and steps away. He waves at Gwen, as though saying, Your turn.

Gwen claps her had. “Alright, everyone. Help me put him into bed.”

David scrambles to his feet. “No, no—I’m fine. I can still go.”

“David,” Neil says, “don’t be a fucking moron.”

“Yeah, David,” Nurf says, “you’re setting a bad example for the impressionable children under your care. Do you want us to learn bad self-care habits?”

“Well, no…”

“We can go jogging another day,” Nikki says.

“Hiking,” Neil corrects under his breath. “It was hiking.”

David sways on his feet. Dizzy-spells have been trying to knock him off his feet for days, but this time, he’s not alone. Gwen pulls his arm around her shoulders.

“Alright, back to bed,” Gwen says.

“I’ve been working on teleportation,” Harrison offers. “I could use magic to get him back to the cabin.”

The other campers start coming up with ideas on how to get David from one side of camp to the other. Neil is busy disproving the psychics behind Nikki’s idea (use a canon), while Harrison and Nerris argue teleportation spells.

“That’s enough,” Gwen tries, but their squabbling drowns her out.

“Hey, shut up!” David flinches into Gwen’s shoulder at Max’s shout. Max grits his teeth. “He can walk; he doesn’t have fucking gangreen. Now, be quiet and fuck off and do whatever you useless fucks usually do in your free time.”

He’s more aggressive today, David thinks blearily.

“Hey, Max, what’s ganggreen?” Nikki asks. Neil shushes her. “What? He likes explaining gross medical stuff.”

“Yeah, but you know how he gets all protective about David sometimes.”

“Oh. Right.”

David manages to hobble to his cabin. Gwen holds his arm over her shoulders the entire way. Max follows. He’s a fleeting weight against David’s leg, brushing up against him one step, gone the other, only to reappear when David stumbles.

Inside his cabin, David is ushered to bed. Max finds the bright yellow comforter and throws it at his head. David catches it, and beams at Max. “You remembered!”

“If we smother him with a pillow, we can pretend he just got sick and died,” Max tells Gwen. He clasps his hands together, and adopts his best I’m a harmless ten year old face.“I don’t know, officer. We just found him like this. What a weird and blameless tragedy.”

“Sorry, kid,” Gwen says. “They do autopsies. They’d work out it was homicide.”

“Damnit.”

“Good try, though. Keep thinking.”

“Hey, now,” David says, and then sneezes violently. Twice. His nose and his throat burns. “Ow.”

Throughout the day, the campers come and go. Nerris tries a variation of healing incantations, and then apologises when they don’t work. Neil comes by with a stack of board games, but Gwen throws him out. (“Never again,” she vows.) The other kids filter in and out, some staying longer, some only dropping by briefly, just to see how he is. And through it all, Max and Gwen are there, trading complaints back and forth, never leaving him alone for longer than a handful of minutes. For two people who bond by brainstorming ways to murder him, they’re intense about his wellbeing. It makes something warm bloom in David’s chest beyond the congested ache in his lungs.

At lunchtime, Gwen leaves to hand out David’s pre-prepared sandwiches to the campers. Max sits by David’s bedside, slowly chewing his sandwich. David nibbles at plain toast.

Max opens his sandwich up, and stares at the three kinds of salad. Sweet mustard dribbles onto his thumb. “How’d you know?”

“What?”

“How’d you know I preferred sandwiches like this?”

“You told me,” David says.

Max scrunches up his nose. “When?”

“Last Hike-Mas, when I made sandwiches with PB&J for everyone.”

“I like PB&J just fine.”

“Sure,” David agrees, “but you said you ate them all the time at home. That you never got healthy, homemade sandwiches.”

Max turns the sandwich over. The crusts have been cut off, and on the top, David has drawn a smiley face in sweet mustard. It’s healthy, and indulgent, and the kind of thing David might have thought Max would hate if he didn’t know better.

Max examines his lunch for a moment longer, and then says, “We can just go on a hike when you’re better. It’s not a big deal.”

“No more excuses?”

“I don’t know, I might catch your cold.”

David shrugs, tearing up his toast. “Right.”

“But you said it didn’t matter,” Max says. “Broken bones or sudden colds—you said you’d carry me anyway.”

David looks up from his toast. Max holds his sandwich to his chest. He’s only eaten the edges of the sandwich, so the mustard smiley-face is still visible. “Is that so?”

“Get better so we can get this hike over with, okay?”

David sinks into the yellow comforter, hiding his smile behind his toast. “Okay. I look forward to it, Max.”


End file.
